Barbazzano ruins

On the heights of Fiascherino, there is a small village of ancient origins, or better, the ruins of what it was. Barbazzano history is very ancient, its origins are lost in the mists of time and it fades into legend.
Already mentioned in a diploma of Ottone II in 981, by 1152 appears in some documents along with the village of Ameglia and in the thirteenth century it became municipality under the protection of Pisa. Its economy was based mainly on agriculture and pastoralism, as evidenced by the terraced landscape that surrounds these places, but the importance and fame derived first of all from its navy, in fact its sailors had the honor of accompanying the bishop of Luni in his travels by the sea.
Today you can visit the remains of the small fortified village, walking along a steep path from the village of Tellaro salt among ancient olive trees, surrounded by the scent of the maquis to reach 115 meters above sea level. So you can reach the village of Portesone, where you can still admire the two floors stone houses that inhabitants abandoned in the sixteenth century by a plague epidemic. From here, continue along the path in the direction of Lerici, you come to the ruins of Barbazzano, where there are only a few stone houses, while the church and the walls are permanently lost.
Legend tells that over one of the gates of the village there was a carved griffin, in honor of the great bird of prey that rushed violently on ferocious leader, who had besieged the small country with their soldiers. An unexpected victory in pecking who saved, if only temporarily, the community of Barbazzano. The sad abandonment of the village, it seems to date back to an epidemic of plague that decimated the population in the fourteenth century and did flee the survivors who built the village of Tellaro.
Therefore, an exciting visit to these ancient ruins, where what is no longer there, is offset by mystery and legend that still lingers between the stones, which lie here as witnesses of a distant past.